My Venture's Unfair Advantage

Resources

1. I am determined when it comes to things that are central to me.

V- Determination helps things get done
R- Many people care a lot about their own business
I- Determination has varying levels of how it can be copied
N- Nothing can replace a desire to take action

2. My father is an experienced salesman.

V- Can lead to avoiding making unnecessary mistakes
R- Very few people could get serious advice from him
I- There are other people with experience in sales
N- Experience is very unique to each person

3. I have the capability to get money to start this company.

V- Capital is the lifeblood of business
R- There are many ways to make money
I- See the above
N- Nothing can directly replace money itself

4. I am experienced in selling t-shirts.

V- Personal background experience leads to better decisions
R- Many people have sold t-shirts
I- The knowledge is easy to attain
N- Knowledge can attained through other methods

5. I am personally invested in this venture.

V- Investment means a person will work for the long term
R- Not all people are interested in the long term
I- Investment can only be copied to such an extent
N- There is no alternative to being invested in a venture

6. My culture will be perfect for this industry.

V- Everyone will love working there
R- Perfect is impossible to find
I- Perfect is unique to each situation
N- Culture is based on your workers environment

7. I am at a university that has many people to help me.

V- A university gives unique knowledge
R- There is only one UF
I- There are many other universities
N- Few institutions other than a university offer the same opportunities

8. My product has a unique spin on an already successful business.

V- Differentiation is huge to success
R- Making a god difference can be hard
I- This difference could be copied easily
N- The difference itself is quite unique

9. I have friends that could help me with the process.

V- People to help can get more work done
R- Workers are easy to attain
I- Workers are easy to copy
N- Workers can be replaced easily

10. I am well informed in what needs to be done for this business.

V- Knowing your business is imperative for deciding what to do
R- This information is not hard to come by
I- Knowledge can be found out and learned
N- You can not alter knowledge

Best resource is: my perfect culture.
If I could have every person working in business happy and stoked to come to work then I could do more than any other business has. 

Elevator Pitch 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSegs0QbYP4

2. From my feedback, I thought it was important that I paid special attention to telling the story of what product does and why someone would want it. I was surprised that my group thought I should spend less time on the mechanics of the shirt, as I thought a deeper understanding of how it worked might intrigue a listener. Overall, I had quality feedback that was all helpful in way or another.

3. As I stated above, I dedicated much more time selling how the shirt helps a customer. I elaborated on the problem that it would fix. I also emphasized how much of a pain it would be if you did not have my shirt. Lastly, I spent much less time talking about the science of how the shirt works in an attempt to avoid boring whoever I would be speaking to.

Reading Reflection 2

1. The theme of Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky is how people have begun to utilize free time and become more creative. He argues ion the past, free time was used for purely personal reasons and was wasting an opportunity to do better.

2. The book was related to the class as it talked about being able to use all parts of what you have. In this class, we regularly break down how what we have accessible to ourselves can benefit our idea. The book uses this exact idea in reference to how we can better use our time. Time is what allows us to get ahead of our competitors so it is extremely important to take advantage of what time we have.

3. A good exercise would be an assignment early on in the class. It would be a simple assessment on how each person uses there time on a day to day basis. The whole day would be recorded and then the deeper portion of the assignment would to be to look at how their free time was used. This viewing could allow students to recognize the potential that free time has given us and how we could use it to advance ourselves.

4. Honestly, the most surprising part of my reading of this book came after I finished it. I realized that the majority of Shirky's description of technology was strictly positive and did little to discuss the negatives associated. For much of my life I have been warned about how the internet is only a place to waste time. His story tells that there is certainly more available to us since technological advances have benefited us in so many different ways. I did not expect such persistent positivity in regards to the internet.

Growing my social capital

1a. Daniel Nelson is a wine salesmen who focuses on selling in the southeast to businesses.
2a. He is a domain expert for me because he is a salesman and is proficient in the art.
3a. Daniel Nelson is my father and I contacted him by text. I obviously am close with him already so I did not need to do any extensive searching to be able to contact him.
4a. He has provided for me for my entire life. He is there for me when I need help and is able to give me a wide variety of advise if I need it. He expects respect and love in return, just as he gives it to me. He also expects me to use what he has given me to the best of my ability. For example, he would like me to do very well in college since he has helped me get to this point.
5a. Including him in my network gives me the great opportunity to learn from someone who has an extensive background in sales. He has been a salesman for over 20 years and is successful in his ventures. Such advice is very rare and quite valuable for someone new to the venture.

2a. Ms. Hartung is a manger at dole and is in charge of ensuring their products are properly targeted towards the younger market.
2b. She the market expert because she has a good understanding of how to target young people with her products.
2c. I found her through my high school friend and contacted her through a call I made after getting her number from my friend.
2d. She taught me the techniques she uses to target young people and in exchange she expects me not to spread the information around. She also wants me to stay friends with he son.
2e. Having her in my network will allow me to be able to better reach my target audience. This is vital as I can not make any money if I cannot make a sale.

3a. Mr. Tumlin is an accountant in the tshirt business. He is well versed in thee numbers behind selling shirts.
3b. He is the supplier because he knows a lot about the ins and outs of the shirt business.
3c. I found him through my roommate and contacted him using the number that my roommate gave to me.
3d. He was able to tell me how I could go about attaining the pieces I would need to create the shirts. His only request was that if I did follow through, he wanted me to go through him to get the pieces.
3e. Having him in my network also allows me to have a direct channel to the materials that I need to create my product.

Reflection
This gave me confidence to be able to approach other, new people in networking events so that I may increase my social capital even more. This was very unique in my networking experience as I have done very minimal networking at all.

Idea Napkin #2

1. I am a 2nd year finance student here at UF. I am good at talking to others and getting to the point of a problem. These are useful for this situation as you need to be able to assess a person's needs as someone selling their idea. I have the experience of selling shirts through band in high school where I sold shirts to friends and family. My aspirations for this idea, if it ever happens, would be to do this after I have retired from my career. I intend to work in capital markets which will take up almost all of my time in the first place. Therefore, if this concept were to come about, it would be after I have already retired.

2. I am offering a hydrophobic shirt to customers. This means that the shirt will look as stylish as other brands but will not absorb sweat like other shirts do. Instead, the sweat would slide down the shirt and no longer stick to your person. This frees a customer from the uncomfortably that the average shirt has.

3. The target audience is young adult/teenage men and women who have the ability to purchase their own clothes and live in hotter/humid temperatures. To narrow it even further, college students in Florida. Their motivation comes from their want to avoid having sweat in their clothes and choosing to buy my shirt to accomplish this goal.

4. This group will want my clothing because people will spend money to be more comfortable. On the higher scale, luxury cars are an entire type of car because people will spend money to be comfortable. On the attire level, people will buy shoes that have memory foam shoes over those that do not because memory foam is more comfortable. These examples show that customers would pick my shirt over the average shirt because people will spend more to be comfortable.

5. I am different from other shirts because these shirts do not absorb sweat. I am also different form "breathable" shirts because these shirts do not handle the sweat that accumulates on your back. Additionally, if there is no wind then breathable shirts fail. My shirt does not need anything beyond the material within it.

The biggest problem with these points is that I lack motivation to actually use my idea. Since I do not want to be an entrepreneur, it will most likely never be used. Two things I learned from my feedback is that people really like my idea and would buy my shirt. I also learned that my idea is already structured well since no real changes were suggested. With this, I made minimal changes to my idea napkin to preserve the essence of my idea napkin.

My Idea's Custom Avatar

This is a young college student who's hair has lightened from all the sun he gets walking to class. He is a junior at the University of Florida and is majoring in electrical engineering. He likes to bike to class and takes his courses pretty seriously. He is in the marching band and plays the saxophone. He also loves going to the football games on Saturdays and recently started going to the basketball games. He drives a blue ford focus that his parents no longer use since they got a new car over the summer. He likes to watch comedies like The Office and Brooklyn nine-nine. He also likes dramas like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones. He has no children and does not intend to have any anytime soon. He would be open to adopting, but again, no time soon. He likes to read fiction novels, usually mysteries. While he does not have a "favorite politician", he is typically left leaning but does not identify as one of the parties.  He is 20 years old and looks it.

For the most part, this description is very much myself. Since my idea was born from my own desire to have a sweat-proof shirt, I believe that people like me would be the ideal customer. I know that many people other than me would want this, but when I picture the idea being put in practice, I see myself as my first customer. So no, these similarities are definitely not a coincidence.

Elevator Pitch #2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPIkKPznNv8

I made sure to dress nicer than I had previously as this made my pitch much more professional. I also stayed away from talking too much and stuck to the time allotment Dr. Pryor discussed in class.  I took these points in to consideration when I did this second pitch.